Dear Friends in Christ:
The SPRC and Church Council are delighted to announce the establishment of the Lee Educational Fund. As you know Hannah has begun study at Boston University and Grace at Wheaton College. While they have scholarship support, a fund has been established to take voluntary, tax-deductible donations to help defray incidental educational costs. Note this is not a budget item and is funded solely by voluntary donations. Checks may be made to CUMC, with "Lee Educational Fund" entered on the memo line. Thank you for any support you can lend to advance the kingdom work of this anointed family.
Jackie Stock, Church Council
Tom Andrew, SPRC
Contoocook United Methodist Church
Statement of Call
by Hye Eun Lee
As part of the candidacy process for formal ministry in the United Methodist Church, I am sharing my statement of call. The purpose of my life is to obey His calling for the glory of God all my life and to live as a witness to the love and truth of Jesus Christ to the world. God has called me out of the dark through Christ Jesus and made me live a new life as His child. God has called me and continue to call me for His work.
Call to be a child of God
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, NIV)
I was born in a family that didn't believe in Jesus, and my parents sent me to a kindergarten near my house, which was run by a church. Since everything I learned was based on the Bible, and all activities and events were aligned with the church's seasons, I naturally learned about Jesus and started going to church with my kindergarten friends. As a young kindergartener, the Lord called me first to the church from my family. And soon God saved my parents who had lived hopeless lives without Jesus. I grew up seeing clearly how God's Word changed my parents' lives. Since then, my parents’ prayer for me and my brother has been that we would be used for the kingdom of God. (My younger brother is a pastor in a church in Korea)
In my teens, I had an earnest desire to experience the power of the Word. Meanwhile, I spent my school years, wrestling with many questions about God and the Word. I experienced to repent my sin very seriously and received the gift of tongues at 16 years old at a youth retreat. That Christmas, I was baptized at the Presbyterian Church in Korea, and I came to believe in Jesus personally. After that, I loved Jesus so much that I used to make a prayer meeting with my friends at my school, and whenever I made friends, I introduced Jesus to them. In the meantime, my father was assigned to the United States by the company and in December 1994, my whole family immigrated to the United States.
Call to be a Missionary
“I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.” (Ephesians 3:7, NIV)
God has trained hard each of our family members in an immigrant society, who had been living a religious life in Korea. The Lord taught us how to live on a strange land, relying only on God. During that time, while praying about my career and future, I met my husband through the introduction of a pastor in Korea. He had a plan to serve as a missionary in Singapore. In April 2000, my husband and I were sent to Singapore as a Korean Methodist missionaries. The call to the missionary through marriage was the answer to my parents' prayers, and God's plan to train and refine me for another call.
Our main missionary work was to train missionary candidates who completed course works in Korea. We lead them to experience mission fields in East Asia like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. I had supported everything my husband needed such as administrative work, housing arrangement, meal plan, and other small matters.
Call to be a Mother
“Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” (1Corinthians 13:7, NLT)
Then, God gave me a daughter, Grace, in 2001, and a son Moses, who died 20 days after a premature birth in 2002, and another son, Daniel in 2004. The call to be a mother made me know the heart of the Father God more deeply. Through this calling, I have been learning patience, endurance, and sacrifice. I have learned the value of life, and how great a miracle it would be for a person to believe in Jesus and be saved. Also, I realized that I had to take care of and love people with a mother's heart.
Call to be a partner
“The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.” (Exodus 15:2, NIV)
After God trained my husband and me in the United States and Korea for over seven years, He called my husband to be the senior pastor of the Glory Korean Methodist Church in Singapore in 2012. When God called my husband, He also called me for a new role. The church was in a crisis in which most members were leaving the church because they got hurt and misunderstood in the church. The call to the church was the most challenging and remarkable turning point in my life. It was the time when my spirit was extremely poor and most eager to seek and depend on God. But as the Bible says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3), God made me experience the joy of heaven.
As a partner of my husband, I committed to actively participate and serve the ministry of the church. First of all, I started to light a fire of prayer in the church that had cooled down. As a leader of the intercession prayer meeting, I began to pray for the church with lay leaders who would pray together. God changed us to be one heart and gave us faith, hope, and love for the church. Also, considering the special environment of Singapore, where there are many young women, I led MotherWise (Denise Glenn, 1999) Bible study groups. Through this women’s ministry, I realized that God gave me the gifts of teaching and comforting others with prayers and the Word. And I had served as a small group leader in the Mother School in Singapore which was the Korean church united ministry, participating in building up young women with the Word of God for many years. God used the gifts given to me and my husband to breathe the life of Jesus into the church and to show that each member grew spiritually healthy with the Word and prayers. After obeying the call of the partner, the gift the Lord gave me, was to love the Word of God even more. I was convinced that the Word of God is alive and powerful, which transforms and leads to salvation.
Call to be an ordained minister
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” (1Peter 2:9, NIV)
Now, God called my family to the United Methodist Church in Contoocook after we had finished our work for about seven years in Singapore. God had given the vision that would not disappear for my lifetime. It is to preach and convey the gospel to those who have been misunderstanding, left, and have not known God. It is to help God’s people to stand firm spiritually. God taught me that He has given me spiritual gifts, the faith in the Lord, the wisdom of teaching and communicating through the Word, and the sympathy and comforting others through my entire life.
Now, He is still calling me so that He can use me to serve others by developing and deepening my gifts through professional and academic training. Even though I am so afraid of studying for Master of Divinity at Boston University in the Fall because English is my second language, I will walk on this road with gratitude that the Lord allowed, as I always have obeyed with the joy to His call for all my life. As my parents’ prayer for me, if I can be used for the Kingdom of God, I really want to commit to the Lord’s church and people for the rest of my life.